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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27481162">it's not what you thought when you first began it</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/warsfeil/pseuds/warsfeil'>warsfeil</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Royalty, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Not How Treaties Are Actually Made</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 20:13:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,222</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27481162</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/warsfeil/pseuds/warsfeil</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“You’re late,” Eichi says, congenially, when Leo enters the room, and Leo contemplates the merits of trying to vibrate out of his own skin to leave his human form behind. </i>
</p>
<p>The Emperor and the King sign a peace treaty, which goes about as well as you'd expect, given the people involved.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Tenshouin Eichi/Tsukinaga Leo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>it's not what you thought when you first began it</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>written as a commission!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If Leo had to put it into words -- well, he wouldn’t be able to, actually. But if he could put his current situation to <i>music</i>, then it would be all minor keys and discordant melodies to assault the senses, to put the listener in the same confusing, chaotic mindset that he’s in right now. He’d write down the idea, but he doesn’t know that he wants to remember this when it’s all said and done. </p>
<p>	He arrives at Eichi’s office exactly half an hour after they were meant to meet, because Sena had told him to be on time but Rittsu had told him to be late and in the end the sheer panic of the situation had meant that he’d completely shut down for a solid two hours while contemplating the life cycle of the trees sacrificed to make his bedroom wall. He’s pretty sure he thought about other things, but he thinks they were all things he was trying to avoid thinking about, because he mostly remembers the trees.</p>
<p>	He named one George. </p>
<p>	“You’re late,” Eichi says, congenially, when Leo enters the room, and Leo contemplates the merits of trying to vibrate out of his own skin to leave his human form behind. </p>
<p>	Leo looks at the door, instead; watches it close behind him with a sense of finality, one of Eichi’s guards giving him (and his sword) a suspicious look. It’s not one of the guards he <i>knows</i>, which means that Eichi doesn’t actually consider him a threat, which is -- comforting? Insulting? Somewhere in between the two?</p>
<p>	“I was thinking about George,” Leo says.</p>
<p>	“George?” Eichi says, repeating it back like a question. Which it is, obviously.</p>
<p>	“My wall,” Leo says, like it’s something Eichi should have already known. It occurs to him that his entire conversation about George’s tragic life cycle from being grown in a tree grove with his family, cut down, and turned into Leo’s bedroom wall was a conversation that Leo had exclusively with himself in his own head, but -- whatever, it’s probably still Eichi’s fault.</p>
<p>	Most things, Leo has found, are Eichi’s fault, when they’re not Leo’s fault. </p>
<p>	Eichi seems to digest this news, and then promptly ignores it. Eichi has a preternatural ability to understand most things and discard the things that he doesn’t, and Leo would feel jealous of it if Eichi wasn’t so -- well -- <i>Eichi</i> about it all.</p>
<p>	“Well, at any rate,” Eichi says, and slides papers across the desk. Leo looks at them from across the room. “You’ll have to get closer if you want to read them, Ou-sama.” </p>
<p>	The address sounds like mockery in Eichi’s voice, and Leo makes a face but steps closer. The treaty is outlined in neat, professional handwriting -- not Eichi’s; Leo has seen Eichi’s handwriting, and there’s none of the characteristic flourishes there. It outlines peace for Leo’s kingdom.</p>
<p>	“We’ll cease any further attacks, open the tradelines, and return Tsukasa-kun, of course,” Eichi says, calmly, like he hadn’t suffered his own losses, like Leo hadn’t crushed half of Eichi’s army before his costs were too great to continue moving forward. “In exchange, you’ll surrender the borderlands and help rebuild the temples damaged in the war, at your own cost, as we discussed.”</p>
<p>	It’s familiar, even if Leo himself didn’t do much of the negotiations. Half of it had been discussed in an endless amount of diplomatic meetings -- Naru had conducted most of them, as the one of the only people who could stand to be in a room with Eichi without actively trying to kill him -- and the other half had been taken care of by threats from Madara and a small amount of bribery from Rittsu. </p>
<p>	Leo still doesn’t know, exactly, what Rittsu had used as bribery, but it <i>worked</i>.</p>
<p>	“Of course,” Leo echoes, in a voice more confident than he feels. “We’ll end the war, as we agreed! Before your forces take any further defeats!” It’s an easy boast, and Eichi lets him have it: Eichi only smiles at him, endlessly allowing. </p>
<p>	“There’s one more cost,” Eichi says, “that we need to discuss.”</p>
<p>	Leo stiffens. Eichi has hinted at it here and there, and Leo isn’t stupid -- despite a mounting pile of evidence to the contrary -- so he understands the intent behind Eichi’s words. Behind their previous friendship, and their current enmity. </p>
<p>	“Is there?” Leo says. “I can’t think of anything!”</p>
<p>	“You promised me,” Eichi says, brings up the past so casually, like it doesn’t twist his insides and burn his soul the way it does for Leo, “that you’d play a song for me.”</p>
<p>	Leo’s smile drops. He looks away. </p>
<p>	“Despite what you think of me,” Eichi says, “I’m still very fond of you.”</p>
<p>	Leo knows that. Empirically. Scientifically. Eichi’s terms for the treaty were generous, even if peace was still mutually beneficial. Eichi allowed himself to bend where Leo could only break, and Leo can do nothing but think that one day Eichi will have the whole world in his hands and still not be satisfied.</p>
<p>	Will he still want to hear Leo sing then? </p>
<p>	“Someone like you doesn’t deserve a song!” Leo says, all bravado, like he hasn’t written a dozen for Eichi already. </p>
<p>	“I won’t sign the treaty,” Eichi says, “until you sing for me.”</p>
<p>	Leo hesitates. He thinks of Ruka; thinks of Naru, of Rittsu, of Sena, of the newbie. Thinks of his people. </p>
<p>	“Fine,” Leo says, and hopes it sounds less weak than he imagines it does. </p>
<p>	Eichi stands up and steps around the desk, and Leo feels his eyes widen as he leans back. </p>
<p>	“I didn’t mean now!” Leo says.</p>
<p>	“What better time than now?” Eichi asks, and his fingers close around Leo’s wrist in a grip that’s deceptively light, given that Leo can’t begin to imagine breaking it. He walks, and Leo follows.</p>
<p>	“I don’t have anything prepared,” Leo says.</p>
<p>	“I believe in you,” Eichi says, glancing back at Leo with a look that says it isn’t a lie -- but is it? Can Leo even tell anymore? He believed Eichi when Eichi told him so many things, and he still can’t figure out the lies from the truth.</p>
<p>	He wants to believe it was all a lie, because it will hurt less than the truth being so complicated.</p>
<p>	Leo grasps for a song as Eichi steps through the spare door of the office. It’s a little sitting room, with “little” being a subjective word relative to the comparative opulence of the rest of the Emperor’s castle. There’s a chaise and some pillows, a table with accessories for tea, an instrument here and there along the wall. Leo wonders how long Eichi has been planning this. Leo wonders if he’d wanted it even before the war had started.</p>
<p>	Leo doesn’t grab an instrument, because he can’t play a song, sing a song, <i>and</i> be anxious all at the same time.</p>
<p>	“I’ll sing,” Leo says, “but that’s all you’re getting!” </p>
<p>	“That’s more than enough,” Eichi says. </p>
<p>	Leo sings. Eichi sits there, on the chaise, his elbow on the edge so he can pillow his chin into his palm and watch Leo. Leo looks resolutely at the wall the entire time, so he’s startled when he finishes and Eichi reaches a hand out.</p>
<p>	“Come here,” Eichi says, and Leo steps forward before he can think about it, his body still too used to listening to Eichi even now. Eichi reaches up, wraps the edge of Leo’s shirt hem around his fingers and pulls him forward and down until Leo has to reach out and brace himself on the chaise to keep himself from tumbling into Eichi’s lap. Eichi is close, too close: he smells like tea and flowers, like a memory so vicious that it takes Leo’s breath away.</p>
<p>	“This wasn’t part of the agreement,” Leo says, and Eichi’s eyes are bright. Leo wonders what Eichi feels. Did he like the song? Did it move him, the way it was meant to? It was supposed to have an entire orchestra behind it, of course, but the lyrics alone-- </p>
<p>	“I didn’t think it needed to be,” Eichi responds, and when his lips meet Leo’s, Leo holds shock still for a few seconds like it will somehow violently eject him from the entire situation. He waits a heartbeat -- then two, then three -- but the world doesn’t change around him, and it’s just Eichi, soft and demanding.</p>
<p>	Leo tumbles forwards after all, his eyes screwed shut. It dislodges Eichi’s lips, but Eichi just moves down, and Leo curses his predictability in continually wearing low-collared shirts because it means that Eichi can easily find purchase on his skin.</p>
<p>	“Do you usually finish treaties by bedding your enemy?” Leo asks, to try to keep himself grounded even as Eichi’s fingers quest underneath his shirt, chilled against Leo’s warm skin.</p>
<p>	“The treaty means we’re not enemies anymore,” Eichi says, and Leo feels something strike through his chest that it’s so easy for Eichi to say it like that -- as though they could simply come back from everything that had happened with a piece of paper. Eichi looks at Leo, and Leo makes the mistake of looking back, seeing whatever truth he can manage in Eichi’s eyes. “I missed you, you know.”</p>
<p>	Leo believes him. Damn it, but he believes him, and he moves when Eichi does, lets Eichi drop him backwards onto the chaise until Eichi can hover over him, look down at him.</p>
<p>	“I don’t believe you,” Leo lies, and Eichi crooks a smile that’s too awkward to be dishonest. Eichi’s perfection is a veneer; he’d never intentionally let a flaw shine through.</p>
<p>	“I expect you don’t,” Eichi says. “But you aren’t leaving, are you?”</p>
<p>	It’s stuck in Leo’s throat, so he reaches up with demanding hands, pulls Eichi down against him again. Eichi comes willingly, yielding and pliant in Leo’s grasp, and his lips are soft against Leo’s. Eichi kisses him the same as he always does: not like he’s conquering, but like he’s questing. Like he’s exploring but set against a desperate backdrop. </p>
<p>	He kisses like he’ll die if he stops touching Leo, and it makes Leo feel the same as ever: that he is a precious thing instead of a pile of mistakes made human; that he can be treasured, that he can be worthwhile. </p>
<p>	It feels wrong, fed against the backdrop of everything they’ve been through, leaves streaks on Leo’s skin that he thinks he’ll be able to see even in the dark, but -- but -- </p>
<p>	“You’re tense,” Eichi says. His hand goes up, withdraws the tie around Leo’s hair so that it spills around his shoulders. </p>
<p>	“Yeah,” Leo says, and thinks about the feeling of falling.</p>
<p>	“You don’t need to be,” Eichi says.</p>
<p>	“Yeah,” Leo says, with the wind in his mind whipping past him quickly enough that he can hear the notes wrapped into it, hear it bubbling in his throat--</p>
<p>	“Ou-sama,” Eichi says. “<i>Leo</i>.”</p>
<p>	Leo snaps back to Eichi’s face. </p>
<p>	“Come back to me,” Eichi says, softly. He does everything soft: he touches soft and speaks soft and betrays so softly that Leo wonders how it could ever hurt so much. A knife between the ribs hurts no matter how gently it’s pushed in, he supposes. </p>
<p>	“I can’t,” Leo says, helplessly, because he can’t: he can’t go back to the way things were, he can’t go back to any of it even if he wants to. It makes him weak, he thinks; he wants all the things he shouldn’t and he doesn’t ever have the drive to do any of them. He wants someone else to be king, he wants to throw his hands up in the air and move to a foreign country where no one knows his name and no one knows the things he’s done--</p>
<p>	Eichi kisses him again. Leo melts into it despite himself; he reaches up and threads his hands through Eichi’s hair to keep him there, to keep him steady, to remind himself that this is real and happening and <i>allowed</i>, somehow. Legal loopholes, probably -- Eichi Tenshouin is one acquired kingdom away from having a piece of paper that reads “I can do what I want” with his official seal as the emperor to mark it, which is terrifying and exhilarating and currently working in Leo’s favor. For the most part.</p>
<p>	Eichi shifts, drags his knee up between Leo’s legs. Leo is half-hard almost as an afterthought, like his body is keeping track of the situation better than his mind, so when Eichi leans in, Leo groans at the feeling, feels himself flush despite the fact that it’s nothing Eichi hasn’t felt before, hasn’t heard before. (Leo promised himself this would never happen again, but Leo supposes he’s always been something of a liar.) </p>
<p>	“Tensh--” Leo starts, automatically, when the kiss breaks; Eichi looks down at him, delighted, and Leo breaks off before he can complete the nickname, before he can lose himself entirely. Eichi waits, but Leo doesn’t say anything else, and so Eichi laughs, leans forward and places a kiss onto Leo’s head as his hands go down to Leo’s hips.</p>
<p>	“Lift up,” Eichi says, and Leo makes a deeply aggrieved sigh (he’s been learning from Rittsu) and lifts his hips up, shuffles his pants off one leg and then gives up on the other. He sits up, pushing too fast into Eichi’s space, and Eichi doesn’t give enough ground, so they wind up right next to each other, Eichi looking surprised.</p>
<p>	“You’re--” Eichi starts.</p>
<p>	“Weren’t you dying again?” Leo asks. “I heard news that the Emperor was bedridden again.” He shifts himself over, swinging his leg over both of Eichi’s and straddling him. It’s a familiar position, but it isn’t one Leo thought he’d find himself in after all this time. There’s something poetic about looking at Eichi from such an equal level right now, but Leo doesn’t want poems. “I’m not signing a treaty with you just so you can wear yourself out.”</p>
<p>	“If I die, it doesn’t actually invalidate the treaty,” Eichi says, but he shifts anyway, reaches into the table next to the chaise that has oil because of <i>course</i> it does, Leo can’t even <i>pretend</i> to be surprised that of course this is exactly where Eichi intended the day to go from the start.</p>
<p>	Alternately, he just has oil stashed in convenient locations in every room, which -- wouldn’t actually surprise Leo, if he’s being honest. </p>
<p>	“If you die, <i>someone’s</i> starting a war,” Leo says, and leans forward to balance precariously as Eichi spreads the oil onto his fingers, drags his hand along his own dick. Eichi hasn’t bothered to undress, pushed his pants open just enough for the main event to take place, and it means that he looks supremely unconcerned and unruffled about the fact that they’re in the middle of sex.</p>
<p>	“If I die, will you start a war for me?” Eichi asks. </p>
<p>	“I--” Leo starts, but then Eichi is lining up and pressing in, and Leo hasn’t had sex since he and Eichi were still on good terms originally so there’s nothing but the feel of the burn and the overwhelming stretch for a long moment until Eichi is all the way in and Leo feels like he can’t move at all. “Ahh, fuck, you have to let me reply when you ask questions!”</p>
<p>	Eichi laughs, and Leo moves, shifts a little and groans at the feeling. Eichi is -- Eichi is too much, in every sense of the word, and Leo doesn’t know why he thought any of this was a good idea  Eichi reaches out to grab onto Leo’s hips, and Leo moves -- he doesn’t know if it’s for Eichi’s sake or his own, but it’s easy enough to do, to create a rhythm that makes his legs burn and his mind blank out into the familiar abyss of sensation.</p>
<p>	“Do you know how beautiful you look like this?” Eichi asks, and his voice is high and breathless and so adoring that Leo’s heart aches and his dick throbs and he can’t bear to look Eichi in the eyes, so he bites his shoulder instead. Eichi reaches up with one hand, tangles it into Leo’s hair, and uses the other hand to reach down and wrap around Leo’s dick. Leo lets out a strangled noise and bites harder, but Eichi just laughs. Leo thinks about warning Eichi, but Eichi doesn’t deserve a warning, so Leo just groans out something that isn’t a real word and has no real consonants and comes, too fast and too hard.</p>
<p>	Eichi, predictably, does not stop, and Leo thinks he runs the risk of drawing blood if he keeps biting him, which is gross, so Leo just thunks his head onto Eichi’s shoulder and rides Eichi through it. </p>
<p>	“Let me see you,” Eichi says, and tugs on Leo’s hair. When Leo doesn’t move, Eichi lets go of his hair and grabs him by the chin, instead, letting his hand drift down to his neck so he can push Leo back just enough to look Leo in the eyes.</p>
<p>	Leo wonders if it’s possible to will yourself into going blind. But then he wouldn’t be able to see Eichi, either -- Eichi, flushed and bright-eyed with his breathing too fast and his lips red, with a mark on his shoulder, and it makes Leo feel something he can’t put a name to and doesn’t want to, so he just clenches down, instead, pushes back against Eichi’s hand until it feels like his breathing is cut off. </p>
<p>	Eichi comes, hard and hot, but he kisses Leo when he does it, presses their lips together hard enough that Leo feels like he could drink his moans down instead of air and be fine.</p>
<p>	For a moment, there’s nothing: there’s nothing in Leo’s head and nothing in Eichi’s eyes, and Leo studiously holds onto it for as long as he can. Which isn’t very long, in the end, because his legs are starting to cramp and he feels unpleasantly sticky and he definitely came all over Eichi’s expensive clothing, which is probably not the worst thing that has happened to Eichi’s clothing.</p>
<p>	“You owe me,” Leo says, rolling off Eichi and thudding into the arm of the chaise, “a bath! In your fancy springs!”</p>
<p>	“Hmm, is that part of the treaty?” Eichi asks, and it’s too playful, too intimately teasing for Leo to be able to have the slightest defense against it. Eichi reaches over, tucks a strand of Leo’s hair behind his ear (it’s a losing battle, Leo thinks, and he doesn’t even know where his hair tie went).</p>
<p>	“No, you just owe me,” Leo responds, immediately. He’ll keep up the charade until he leaves, until he goes home. He can sacrifice that long. He can allow himself that long. He stands up, hopping and pulling his pants back up, and Eichi tucks himself away and watches the spectacle for a long moment before he stands up himself.</p>
<p>	“I suppose I do, don’t I?” Eichi says, and smiles. “Allow me to make it up to you, ou-sama.”</p>
<p>	Leo doesn’t know if that’s possible, doesn’t know if anything can mend what’s happened between them, but for now… But for now, he’ll pretend that it can be fixed. For his sake, and for Eichi’s, even if neither of them deserve it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>you can find me on twitter @warsfeils where i cry about eileo every so often even after all this time</p></blockquote></div></div>
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